Characteristics: Corydalis is a perennial herb of the Papveraceae family and has been used in traditional medicine in China, Korea, and Japan (Wu et al., 2007). It grows wild in Siberia and Northern China. It is cultivated primarily in the Zhejiang province of China.

History: Corydalis is an ancient Chinese medicinal herb traditionally used in the treatment of cardiovascular disease, pain, and to promote blood circulation (Ma et al., 2008). Multiple types of pain are targeted with Corydalis in traditional Chinese medicine and include chest pain, headache, epigastric pain, back pain, abdominal pain, and arthralgia pain. It is also used to help withdrawal from heroin in China by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. It is the second strongest pain reliever in traditional Chinese medicine behind opium.

Science: Several studies have been done investigating the chemical constituents of Corydalis and their pharmacological properties (Ma et al., 2008). dl-Tetrahydropalmatine (THP) has been found to be one of the main active alkaloids and is neuroactive, binding antagonistically to the dopamine D1 and D2 receptors (Wang et al., 2012; Ma et al., 2008). These receptors are known to be antagonistically regulated in cocaine users, and Corydalis therefore has potential as a therapy to support addiction withdrawal. A recent high profile study in Current Biology, found Corydalis contained a compound called dehydrocorybulbine (DHB) that displayed analgesic effects (Zhang et al., 2014). Like THP it was found to have dopamine receptor antagonistic activities. The authors found DHB to be effective against acute pain, inflammatory pain, and neuropathic pain. Although not much research has been done on humans using Corydalis, there is one small study that found a significant reduction on pain in humans compared with a placebo using a combination of corydalis and Angelicae dahuricae (Yuan et al., 2004).

Safety: Corydalis is safe for most, however, avoid in pregnant or breast feeding women. Additionally, extra caution is needed when taking corydalis with other sedatives due to an additive effect.

Dosage: 10-60 drops of tincture 2-4 times daily. For dried extract, see packaging.